Demons Die as Demons Do
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Travelling along the Spirit Tracks gave Zelda plenty of time to think and reflect. Even more time when the train had to be stopped for repairs.


_Demon Fossil: Fossil of an ancient demon. Sounds rare, but it turns up all over the place._

Demon fossil item description, _The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks_

* * *

 **Demons Die as Demons Do**

"Need any help?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"…can you use words other than yes or no?"

"Yes."

Zelda sighed. Being a ghost, it wasn't as if she had any air to siphon out of her lungs through her mouth, but somehow she managed it. The sigh sounded the same, but it didn't feel the same. It was just a sound, coming from an immaterial body. Nothing more. No air entered the air around her, no lungs moved with her breath. Whereas in contrast, the hisses and groans of the Spirit Train were coming from a very big, very real thing. And the grunts that came from the boy working under it were very real as well.

"Damn it!"

So was that exclamation. Zelda hovered down to the ground.

"Link? Link?!"

He crawled out, his face red and blistered. "Rag," he said.

"What?"

"Rag!"

"Rag? Oh, rag!" The princess of Hyrule flew up to the driver's cabin, to the rag Link kept on hand for whatever needed cleaning. "Here, I'll get it."

Except she didn't. Her hand went straight through the rag. Frowning, she tried again. And again. And again.

 _Oh_.

A green arm came up to the cabin and took the rag. Zelda watched as Link opened a waterskin and poured some water onto it, before dampening his face. It wasn't the best treatment for steam burns there was, but out here on the Spirit Tracks, far removed from any civilization, it was the best that they could do.

"Sorry," Zelda said.

"Hmm?" Link lowered the rag, his face still red, and still a bit blistered, but less painful looking. "Why?"

"It's just…" She pressed a hand against the Spirit Train, the hand disappearing into it, and half of her arm as well. "Just… _this_."

"This?"

"That I can't do anything!"

"Oh." Link paused, frowning. Looking like he wanted to say something. Eventually uttering, "shouldn't Chancellor Cole be the one apologizing?"

"I should have seen it!" she exclaimed, buzzing around in the air like a bee that couldn't find a flower. "I…I should have stopped him! I…I should of…should of…"

She trailed off. What _should_ she have done? Cole…she'd noticed over the last few months that he'd been putting her more and more to the side of ruling Hyrule, but it had gone further back than that. Her parents were dead. She was far too young to rule a kingdoms, and protocol demanded that the realm's chancellor step in until the future monarch came of age. But even then, looking back, she suspected it had started before that. Because here she was, out in the Forest Realm, on the way to the Forest Temple, having never stepped outside Castle Town her entire life.

She was useless. Absolutely useless. Link didn't say so, Anjean didn't say so, but she was not _that_ naive to see the truth of the world. The truth that the fate of her kingdom depended on a boy who until recently had never held a sword in his life. That they weren't dead yet was a miracle.

"Anyway," Link said. He picked up a spanner from the cabin and went back to the train's underbelly. "We'll be on our way soon."

She nodded, even if he couldn't see her. How long would the miracle of their continued living last? Granted, she…she frowned. Could she actually die? Her body was off with Cole (an image she didn't want to fill her mind again, even if that image kept finding a way of breaking back in), but if they failed, if she was left like this…what then? Fated to roam her kingdom, people unable to see or hear her? The lokomos still existed, and could still interact with her, but they were just a handful of the people who existed in New Hyrule.

And maybe it was her imagination, but she could see that the signs of her kingdom's fall approaching. Not just the disappearing Spirit Tracks. Not just the demon trains that rode them, chasing down the Spirit Train in a storm of smoke and fire. No. They had to deal with bulbins as well. Bulbins riding on bullbos firing arrows at them. Bulbins that had been killed by the train's cannon, but had done enough damage beforehand to force it to a halt. Their bodies were still by the rails a few dozen feet away, further down the tracks. Zelda had given them one glance, and had so far managed to resist giving them a second look. She knew that death was a thing that she'd have to face one day. If Cole brought back Malladus, it was something that all her subjects would have to face. But for now, she could keep her eyes on the living…even if only the legs of the living were showing right now.

"There. All done."

Legs followed by a torso, a head, and blonde hair covered by a green cap. She just stared at him, wondering if it was an improvement over his black and red royal engineer uniform. It wasn't as if the boy was bad looking, regardless of what he was wearing, but-

"Zelda?"

"Hmm?"

"Ready?"

"Ready? Oh, yes, ready." She bit her lip, even if her lips were transparent, and as a ghost, she was bereft of any pain from that. Apparently losing one's body did have some advantages. She watched as Link walked over to pick up his satchel.

"Damn it!"

…and watched as it opened up, a collection of detritus falling onto the grass.

"Here, let me help," she said. She swooped down, trying to pick up a pearl necklace. Tried, and failed. Link, who'd knelt down on the grass, gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Sorry," she whispered.

He didn't say anything. Which was a shame, because she was getting used to the boy saying more than "yes" and "no." Instead, all she could do was float and watch. Preserved bee larvae, a stalfos skull, necklaces of various kinds…it seemed that the life of adventurer came with the benefits of loot. But-

"What's that?"

"Hmm?"

Zelda stuck out an arm, pointing to the strange rock on the grass. Link picked it up and showed her.

"This? Oh, it's a demon fossil."

"A demon fossil?"

"Yeah. Found a few."

"A demon fossil…" she repeated.

"Yes. Want to see?"

"No." She turned her head away.

"Zelda?"

" _Princess_ Zelda, and I suggest you focus on getting us moving."

Link grunted. "Fine. Excuse me, Princess."

Zelda kept her gaze turned away from Link. She knew it was childish behaviour most unbecoming of the future ruler of New Hyrule. It was behaviour unbecoming even by the standards of a commoner. She hoped that Link could tell that it wasn't his fault, but rather, just the idea of a demon fossil. A _fossil_. She wasn't so naive as to not have a basic understanding of geology (her tutors had done their jobs well), that fossils formed after aeons of compression as animal remains were buried by strata. Anjean had told them of the war waged between the demons and spirits long before her grandmother led her people here. Of the demons that would return to the land of Malladus was released. She'd heard tales of people finding demon fossils everywhere, barely even buried, but until now, she'd never thought much of it. But in hindsight…

What if Malladus was released? What if war came again? What if demons did battle in the same numbers they once had? What if, aeons from now, a new race of people came to this land? Came, and found fossils of her own people, cut down by monsters. Or…She looked at the bodies of the bulbins, already attracting birds of carrion. What if their remains were found as well? Was this to be her legacy? When her grandmother had led her people here a century ago, was this what she had in mind? For only two generations to pass before her granddaughter left her kingdom on the edge of ruin?

She couldn't say – yet another thing she didn't know. She floated up to the train as Link sounded the whistle, and the Spirit Train began to move. Why he sounded the whistle she didn't know, but the boy knew his craft as a royal engineer, and suspected it had become force of habit.

"Link?" she asked.

"Hmm." His gaze was firm and unwavering, fixated entirely on the tracks ahead. He put the train into high gear – apparently he wanted to get to the Forest Temple as soon as possible.

"Just…I mean…" She cleared her non-existent throat. "I just wanted to say thank you."

He glanced at her.

"I mean, I know that when you studied to become a royal engineer you probably didn't have this in mind." She gestured to the lands around them. "I mean, saving princesses, saving the kingdom, fighting monsters…"

He yawned. "Not really."

"Yes. Well, I-"

"But it's fun."

She stared at him. "What?"

He shrugged. "You ever feel like you were born to do something?"

"I'm a princess. I knew what I was born to do as soon as I could talk."

"Right. Well, I never thought I'd be doing any of the things you suggested, but…" He shrugged. "Just feels like it was…meant to be."

"Meant to be?"

He sighed – a proper sigh from a proper body. "Nevermind. Sounds crazy." He blew the whistle again. "Well, don't worry. We'll be at the Forest Temple in no time."

Zelda didn't say anything. Instead, she let her gaze linger on the wide open fields of the realm. The land was so empty, she reflected. New Hyrule had been built around the Spirit Tracks, the lines able to keep her kingdom together over vast differences. If they went, her kingdom would go. A kingdom that had once been a battlefield. A kingdom where, on these very plains, spirits and demons had battled for eternity. Perhaps even before the eyes of Men looked upon the earth and stars, and gave names to their existence.

She could never let that happen to this realm again.

Never.

* * *

 _A/N_

 _So, similar to what I did for goron amber in_ Phantom Hourglass _, I gave similar treatment to the demon fossil item in_ Spirit Tracks _. Not sure how fossils "turn up all over the place" considering that fossils tend to be found in rock strata, but hey, fantasy. Drabbled this up regardless._


End file.
